Grief Flashbacks

It’s the end of October and I can’t help but think about what I was doing at this time last year. We had just wrapped up a successful Thanksgiving dinner with our Mexican family, we were planning a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Vancouver to see the Canucks play.

My Dad was dying.

The air was crisp, leaves were changing, and we had picked pumpkins from a pumpkin patch in Chase.

My Dad was dying.

Amongst the chaos and turmoil, we were broke, and I was beginning to break under the pressure of supporting five adults financially, emotionally, and even spiritually. I was buckling under the weight of my many roles, the first of which was a mother of two adult Mexicans, who, had no concept of what life was like in Canada and had reverted back to their childhood selves, often demanding crazy Mexican herbs and fruits that could never grow here even in the summer. Second, I became a caregiver for the strongest person I’d ever know, a man suddenly physically weakened by illness but who remained my mental sanity check. And then I was also sister to a brother I hadn’t lived with in years, but who needed the support of someone who was just a type-A, crazy older sister. But.

My Dad was dying.

Add to this that I wasn’t able to speak English 92% of the time, or eat the foods I liked, both because I completely lost my appetite for them, and because it was fucking Taco Tuesdays every night except for when I had the energy and time to make a regular balanced Canadian dinner.

Life was shitty and my Dad was dying.
But he was with me.

Fast forward to the present, and I’m feeling the same shitty way I did last October but through grief flashbacks, and I’m feeling this way in a new life that should arguably be much happier. Correction, a life that is much happier, but is just missing a major piece: my Dad. And while it is a happy life, the grief flashbacks are killing me as we creep closer to the one year anniversary of his death.

My Dad is gone. He’s never coming back.

These days of midterms are most challenging, because when I do well or when I bomb a test, I just want to call my Dad. The “this time last year” thoughts echo sadness through my heart and make it worse, because he was HERE. October 28, 2013; on this day I could have talked to him for reassurance. I could have touched him. October 28, 2014; there is no one to call.